The Voice of a Deadman
by cruciolover
Summary: There was a time when followers of Voldemort had prosperous lives of their own, before names were tainted by heinous crimes; before Voldemort's downfall against the young and blooming Potter family. The Lestrange family, the marriage between Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus, were Voldemort's most loyal followers and they perhaps, suffered a much greater downfall than their leader.


"No!" Rodolphus' voice howled, echoing deeply in the passage out toward the other cells in Azkaban, "That is completely unjust and out of the question! Where is Lucius? He's just as involved as I am."

The tension was high and lingered in the atmosphere. Rodolphus could sense the messenger man's nerves. Rodolphus persisted on threatening him, hoping that his fear would overcome his authority, and that perhaps he would return to the ministry with a counter proposal, but the man prevailed.

"My deepest condolences, Mr. Lestrange, but the sentence has already been determined. Your fate has been decided!" spoke a small voice of authority, through the cracks of Rodolphus' imprisonment. His voice was shaky in delivery. It was evident that delivering a message to a double-charged Azkaban prisoner unnerved him, especially to one who abused the unforgivable curses on numerous occasions.

Rodolphus flew to where the messenger was standing taking advantage of his insecurity. Only magic, steel, and stone were separating the two. He gripped the entry way in a frightening manner and maliciously barked at the man, "Where is Lucius Malfoy? What is his sentence? He was alongside me in the war. He fought for the Dark Lord as well!"

Nothing was spoken. There was an unfulfilled eerie silence. The silence was all Rodolphus needed to hear to confirm his assumption about his old, dear, friend Lucius. He knew the bastard was excused from his charges. He knew Lucius would not accompany him in Azkaban; he would be at home sitting in _freedom_.

Overflowing with disgust from the unjustness of the court, Rodolphus spat at the man, a man from the newly developed ministry; he snarled at him through his slowly decaying teeth, "Take that to your precious court. Apparently I don't have enough money to influence your cowardly, bias judgement like Lucius does, huh? The Ministry's bribery mustn't be cheap!"

The Ministry Man backed away from the prison cell finishing the last part of his letter; he was fulfilling his duty by making sure all of the necessary information was delivered to the convicted criminal.

"Your sentence is set for dawn, Mr. Lestrange. That is when the execution will commence," the small voice whispered through the cell, vanishing into the dark, and bouncing into Rodolphus' head.

Soon the steps of the authority figure echoed down the corridor; and after that it was just Rodolphus with his thoughts. In a matter of hours his death would come to him in the most inhumane, unruly way possible – dementors. He gripped his temples, while knotting his fingers in his dark, thick, unwashed hair, trying to grip his thoughts. Helplessly he slipped into shadows of his confinement.

"What have I become?" he hushed, the sorrow in his voice as clear as his inked prison numbers on his flesh, "Look how it all ends. Was it really worth it? Was the cause really worth the cost?"

Rodolphus sat in his cell searching for comfort from the coldness of the rock around him. He rested his cheek on the damp, aging, stone that kept him locked away with other dangerous wizards. His eyes slowly shut as he remembers the last few decades of his life. Look what has become of him; a once prosperous wizard now with only loss and emptiness. So much death had entered his life, and now it will come to him. In a matter of hours his soul would be sucked out of his body; dementors feeding on every ounce of happiness to ensure his last feelings are nothing but the most agonizing of memories. It would be the proper death for a heinous criminal.

He pictured his wife, his fearless powerful Bella, in her last moments. She was willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice. Her passion for the Death Eaters was always something Rodolphus had admired about his merciless spouse.

"My vengeful Bellatrix, how did this happen to us? To all of our dear friends?" a sombre Rodoluphus mumbles mourning the fall of his fellow Death Eaters.

He too supported the Dark Lord. He too wanted the Wizarding Community to be free of dirty blood; to be filled with only the pure and deserving. He too was convinced that the Death Eaters would win this war and take power of the magical world, but they underestimated the young wizards; now look what the Death Eaters are now - a failed vision defeated by the new, redefined, upcoming generation of magical existence.

His mind was drifting off and his thoughts switched from 'what could have been' to 'what was'. He started to recollect about what kind of man he used to be, what sort of life he lived, before the second Wizarding World, before he was sentenced to death. The memories of when he was a young, naive, newlywed to a lethal beauty.


End file.
